Beyond Thunderdome

We had been waiting for a few minutes at the agreed upon meeting place when he came screaming around the corner on a motorbike, his side-car aloft at a 45 degree angle. He was a true seadog from the matted yellow hair sticking out at all angles from a leathery bronzed face right down to the bashed up barefeet that bore teeny stubs resembling cornchips where his toenails ought to have been, the only thing that didn’t fit were his kind, twinkling blue eyes. Of course from the moment we met him he became Mad Max to us but as briny as he was, he was a very likeable guy. We got settled into our little catamaran before heading over to the local restaurant for a chart briefing over dinner and then learned more about Max over a few beers and yes of course…for him a pipe.
Our vessel, Sabaii Sabaii was a mean green machine. Completely held together by string with barely any metal onboard, she looked as if Gilligan, the Skipper and Professor had lashed her together rather than being a legitimate charter vessel. (although Max claimed she was only 4 years old and a fine craft). Being a catamaran, she was scarce on cabin space but ample on deck space. It was the first catamaran that we had ever chartered so we had a few tips from Max, including… this is so cool… a lesson on how to beach the boat! Yes, you can pull the catamaran right up on the sand! We were also pretty excited that the boat came with a spinnaker (that’s the really pretty colourful sail that you see sometimes way out in front of the boat). Most charters don’t come with them because they are finicky to launch, but this one was really easy to rig.
We stayed the night in Phuket hoping for some good strong wind for our first stop Ko Phi Phi Don.